Activision Blizzard has plenty of money to spend, and I’m sure it employs some of the most talented legal specialists in the world to defend its intellectual property and franchises. It seems it’s going to need both money and incredible lawyers – and maybe a little luck – to come out of its current legal struggles on top. In one corner you have Blizzard, one of the most successful video game companies in the world, with bestselling games of almost every genre on almost every platform. In the other corner is Bossland, a cheating software development company based out of Germany who refuses to play by the rules. These two have been duking it out since 2011, and every time Blizzard chops off the head of the beast, two more burst forth.
You may have heard about Blizzard and Bossland recently because of the latter company’s popular Overwatch hack called “Watchover Tyrant.” Watchover Tyrant gives Overwatch players an enhanced radar that shows them live positions of all friendlies and enemies, as well as their health statuses. You can imagine how that would ruin the game for legitimate players. Imagine facing off against a player who knew exactly when you were about to turn a corner or rush an objective; it’d be a nightmare no matter which hero they were using.
It’s the worst kind of cheating, especially since Overwatch competitive play has just launched globally, and Blizzard estimates that Bossland’s cheating software is costing them millions of dollars by causing legitimate players to lose interest. “Defendants’ sale and distribution of the Bossland Hacks in the United States has caused Blizzard to lose millions or tens of millions of dollars in revenue, and to suffer irreparable damage to its goodwill and reputation,” Blizzard said in its complaint.
Of course Blizzard is taking legal action, but Bossland CEO Zwetan Letschew isn’t worried. “There are over 10 ongoing legal battles in Germany already,” he said, and he quips about how strange it seems that Blizzard would file this most recent lawsuit out of California where the court system has no jurisdiction over his company (or so he claims). “Now Blizzard wants to try it in the US too. One could ask himself, why now and not back in 2011. Why did Rod Rigole even bother to fly to Munich and drive with two other lawyers… to Zwickau.” You can sense the defiance and flippancy in his words.
You may have noticed that he asked why Blizzard didn’t try to sue out of the US back in 2011, and that’s because, for over half a decade now, Bossland has been developing various iterations of cheating software for Blizzard games. When Blizzard frames the story, it sounds as if it’s very confident that it has this one in the bag – after all, it’s apparently won multiple cases against Bossland in German courts. Bossland, on the other hand, doesn’t even think this lawsuit is real yet. Letschew points out that they’ve yet to receive notice of the suit, and mentions that Blizzard’s latest case against his company for cheat software used in Heroes of the Storm was thrown out; Blizzard had to pay Bossland’s legal fees after that one.
It’s an intense, bitter, ongoing back-and-forth. Who has the upper hand, and who will come out on top? Place your bets, ladies and gentleman. Is Overwatch too important to Blizzard, and can they finally put an end to Bossland’s antics? Is Bossland safe and sound as long as it operates out of Germany with no ties to the US? Is Watchover Tyrant a program you’d be interested in? Let us know in the comments.
Source: TorrentFreak